key stage 1 SATS

milliebear00001

I have to say though (and I'm not knocking what you say, cos I AM a teacher!) those hours may be normal for an NQT, but it does become easier to cut down the time spent planning and preparing. Assessment always takes ages - esp. at Key Stage 2, but I don't know any teacher who works 6 hours outside the classroom everyday. The salary obviously goes up too (and fairly rapidly compared to other professions). Yes it's a stressful, underpaid job with long hours, but it also has huge benefits, and relative job security compared to many jobs in other sectors.

Sorry to highjack the thread a bit, but I see both sides of the fence having worked in the private sector, and then in teaching. I know many teachers who moan and complain about the job when they have no experience of working outside teaching, and equally, many people who think teachers have it 'easy' and yet for some reason never see fit to actually train and do the job!

Spendless

kelloggs36 wrote: »

Even if your child's school closed because of the lack of teachers? I doubt it.:rolleyes:

I'd book a cheap break myself so it wouldn't bother me. But the school has closed for strikes, the heating not working, cos they were putting an extra port-a-cabin up. The majority closed around here cos of snow, so as long as the teacher taught at primary level didn't want to go the first week the school started in september or at sats time, wouldn't bother me- as much as you might doubt it!

across

kelloggs36 wrote: »

I shall tell you my normal week. Start at 8.15am and prepare for morning lessons - teach until 12.30pm when it is lunchtime for the children, but some days I don't have time for lunch at all, others I grab about 10 - 15 mins to stuff down something and then get back and make sure that everything is ready for the afternoon, or grab some extra marking time. Start teaching again at 1.20pm until 3.15pm when children go home. I then stay until 6pm when I get kicked out by the caretaker. I go home and then work for another 2 or so hours at home either planning, assessing or getting resources ready for lessons or attending meetings. I also work every Sunday for at least 4 hours. Even PPA time isn't enough! This week I have dared to have 3 days where I haven't worked, BUT I have to plan for next term - my medium term plans for maths, literacy, ICT, science, Art, music, French, History PE etc all have to be in by the beginning of next term plus I have to submit the completed plans for last term, ie what I actually taught compared to what I had initially planned to teach. I also have to get applications ready for jobs as my contract ends at the end of July!

So, it isn't possible to say how many days off I get really. I worked out that my hourly rate of pay for the hours I ACTUALLY work (I only earn just over 20k per year) and I nearly cried! It worked out to be just over the minimum wage. So no, I don't get a decent wage for the work I do. I do it because I love it and whilst I know that my wage will increase, I still have to pay my student loan plus I pay over £100 into a pension which is a big chunk, but hopefully will be worth it in the end. I actually took a 5k per year pay cut to become a teacher and got myself a 13k debt in the process! Mad I think!

i'm glad i'm not a teacher you work very hard dont you perhaps as you become more experienced you'll find better time management so the job becomes easier and you'll feel a lot better and have time for a break somewhere nice, dont give up stick at it.
youve made me realise being a housewife is luxury!:eek:

mrcow

I'd love it if the school would shut down during normal term time so staff and pupils could take holidays rather than being forced to do so at county-set intervals so the holiday companies can see you coming.

My sister's children go to a private school that set their own holiday times and she can get much better bargains than me.

across

Spendless wrote: »

I'd book a cheap break myself so it wouldn't bother me. But the school has closed for strikes, the heating not working, cos they were putting an extra port-a-cabin up. The majority closed around here cos of snow, so as long as the teacher taught at primary level didn't want to go the first week the school started in september or at sats time, wouldn't bother me- as much as you might doubt it!

thats what i'd do! and i must admit i loved it when the school was closed for snow i hate doing school run!!i much prefer to play in snow with kids than make pack lunches drop em off n come back n clean house!!!!!!:D
when i was doing my o'levels schools were on strike all time (in 80s) it was great and i still went on to get a degree so had no impact on my educational attainment whether i was in school or walkng round town buying records due to teachers in the 80s letting me down!bring on the snow thats what i say!:rotfl:

across

kelloggs36 i feel like youve misled me and i felt sorry for you earlier but if teaching takes up so much of your time how come you spend so much of your time on here it clearly cant be true(when you said after 6 when you get home you do another two hrs)i am afraid you have made me feel like i cannot trust a word your saying and you had me going for a bit:rolleyes: i really thought you were overworked but ive been on here a yr more than you yet ive only done just over a quarter of the amount of posts you have so perhaps its the housewife thats overworked after all and i dont get paid a penny!but i never complain i just do my job i'm an unpaid happy person so you should cheer up youve got a good wage!:T

kelloggs36

It is the school holidays now! I also pop on and post on threads, but out of 2 hours in the evenings, I can be looking on here for a min and then go and do some planning - I don't sit 24 hours a day working!!!!!

kelloggs36

I have been at university too and have had lots of time spare - it doesn't take a lot of time to post on a thread does it really???????

kelloggs36

across wrote: »

kelloggs36 i feel like youve misled me and i felt sorry for you earlier but if teaching takes up so much of your time how come you spend so much of your time on here it clearly cant be true(when you said after 6 when you get home you do another two hrs)i am afraid you have made me feel like i cannot trust a word your saying and you had me going for a bit:rolleyes: i really thought you were overworked but ive been on here a yr more than you yet ive only done just over a quarter of the amount of posts you have so perhaps its the housewife thats overworked after all and i dont get paid a penny!but i never complain i just do my job i'm an unpaid happy person so you should cheer up youve got a good wage!:T

I've not misled you in any way, I have told the absolute truth, as I have said, I work a couple of hours in the evenings which means I still have time to post on here as well!!!! I'm not complaining as such, just pointing out how it is - it is a common misconception that teachers arrive at 9am and leave at 3.30pm and have all those holidays!! My posts have been over the past 3 years and I have been teaching since September so your logic kind of goes out of the window there. I would suggest that a housewife is not overworked (not in my experience lol) - perhaps your time management needs to be checked :rotfl: I am sorry you feel I have misled you but rest assured I have not!! Now, as it is the school holidays (and I have not yet done any work - am planning to spend every evening doing that for the next week and a half) I'm off to get dressed and do the shopping. I have stupidly agreed to look after my sister's 4 children whilst she goes on holdiay with her hubby for a week. I may lock myself in the office and post on here some more!!!!

Oh, and the job security isn't that great - lots of schools are merging classes due to falling roll numbers and redundancies are more common than ever before as are single year contracts - of which I have one. I have spent some time filling in application forms for jobs to start in September in the hope that I can get a permanent position. It seems that my first class degree doesn't count for much!:rotfl:

dizziblonde

I can back what kelloggs is saying up in terms of hours - it's perfectly possible to run that level of working time up teaching. Yes you can reduce it over time if you get lucky, stay in the same year group, the curriculum doesn't change - but some heads like staff to rotate, and the literacy and numeracy curriculums have just changed in primary so there's a lot of resourcing and planning to be done from scratch again which whacks the workload right back up. I was very lucky in that I had a realistic head, and we could share planning as it was a large school I taught at last - but still I was regularly at the PC sorting stuff out until 10/11 at night (and yes I'd flick to forums while stuff was printing off or whatever) - and I was one of the people with a better work/life balance than most.

The job situation is actually getting pretty dire as well - the only contracts around are one-year temp ones, and once you've been working a couple of years - you're too expensive to employ (because our payscale is set nationally we can't agree to work for a lower wage really) which is where I'm at now pretty much - or would be if I hadn't decided enough was enough and just dropped onto doing supply teaching so I got my life back. Even that's in danger though because now you don't have to have qualified teachers covering classes - which I think is pretty shocking but no one really seems to care.

And just btw... those wretched adverts with what you'll earn on... are 99% fibs - the figures quoted are incredibly rare as a percentage of teaching, but they're painting them as the common level of earnings - it's not.